AMD Processors - nForce 630a without AHCI

Posted 19 January 2013 - 02:26 PM

iProCr4ftr

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Hello,

I have a motherboard (ASUS M4N68TM_LE_V2) which has the nForce 630a chipset (for AMD processors). As is the theme with nForce chipset motherboards, there is no option to select AHCI, only the default IDE mode or RAID, as seen in the following image:

Posted 19 January 2013 - 06:00 PM

verdant

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For background info. on "Still waiting for root device" see here.......

Your OS X Installer (either USB or DVD) will need to have the appropriate kext in either the /Extra/Extensions and/or /System/Library/Extensions folder that it is booting from to get you to the OS X Installer app Desktop.....

If you want to run OS X ML, then you will need a 64bit kext for the 630a chipset. However, the kexts that were referred to in my previous posts relating to OS X Leopard will probably be 32bit only kexts....e.g. see the kexts here......

Posted 19 January 2013 - 07:35 PM

iProCr4ftr

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It's strange because when I use a 64-bit NForce ATA kext, before it gets to "Still Waiting For Root Device", the hard drive and optical drive start (can see via the HDD LED indicator and the optical drive spin sound), but still doesn't work. If I don't use the kext, there is no disk activity etc.

Posted 19 January 2013 - 08:06 PM

For ML, the kext needs to be the appropriate kext for the Southbridge chipset as well as being 64 bit capable.

Try installing OS X ML on an external HDD in a USB enclosure if your PC allows USB booting to find out which ATA kexts works for your MOBO, and then use OS X Disk Utility to prepare the internal HDD for installing OS X onto to it via the USB HDD......

Posted 19 January 2013 - 08:40 PM

iProCr4ftr

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For ML, the kext needs to be the appropriate kext for the Southbridge chipset as well as being 64 bit capable.

Try installing OS X ML on an external HDD in a USB enclosure if your PC allows USB booting to find out which ATA kexts works for your MOBO, and then use OS X Disk Utility to prepare the internal HDD for installing OS X onto to it via the USB HDD......

Posted 20 January 2013 - 01:24 PM

verdant

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It all depends on what OS X version you want to run on the nForce AMD PC. If you are happy to stick with Snow Leopard so that you can run the kernel in 32bit mode, while still able to run 64 bit apps, then you have a better chance of finding the correct kext......

If you do not wish to give up just yet, to save your time, I recommend that you initially install OS X Leopard using a AMD compatible Install DVD distro such as:

LawlessPPC-10.5.4-Phenom-AMD

iATKOS 4a AMD

Leo4Allv4.1 AMD

iPC 10.5.6

iDeneb V1.4 10.5.6 etc.

to set up two OS X volumes on your HDD and then install Leopard on one of the volumes to figure out exactly what you need to do boot and run OS X Leopard on your system......and then use Leopard to help you install OS X Snow Leopard on your second HDD volume, and so on.........see this AMD Retail Snow Leopard install guide...........as you no doubt know, you will also need patched kernels for installing OS X Lion and Mountain Lion on AMD.....

Posted 03 March 2013 - 04:42 PM

Aspartam

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Hello,

I have a motherboard (ASUS M4N68TM_LE_V2) which has the nForce 630a chipset (for AMD processors). As is the theme with nForce chipset motherboards, there is no option to select AHCI, only the default IDE mode or RAID, as seen in the following image:

The boot flags which I use are: -x -v npci=0x3000(I usenpci=0x3000 in order to get around the [PCI Configuration Begin] error)

No matter if I run it using -x or not, it still won't work.

I have tried 5/6 different nForce ATA kexts, to no avail, and tried Verdant's Support Pack, which didn't seem work for me either.

What would you suggest? What do you think is the problem?

Also to note, I have Mac OS X Mountain Lion on a USB drive, using Andy Vandjick's 10.8.2 AMD kernel. I am using Chameleon the bootloader.

Thank you.

Hi!

As I see, you have the same chipset as my motherboard. I will tell you what I did and where I am now.

First of all I needed a running Mac system. In BIOS there is no option for AHCI, only IDE or RAID. Only method what was work to me is Downloaded boot-kabyl-bumby.zip, and booted in to hazard installation dvd with "-v -busratio=11 maxmem=4096". My cpu is AMD Phenom X4 9550 it works on 2200 MHz, the bus speed is 200 MHz, so the multiplier (busratio) is 11. I think the kernel which is on dvd does not recognizes more then 4 GB RAM. So booted in to install and selected:

After install finished, I booted up the system and found out, almost nothing works. Only LAN and sound works for me. So I started reading verdant's tutorial. My system does not recognized non USB devices I attached (The solution was to turn off Legacy USB in BIOS. If you turn off this, then USB keyboard and mouse won't work until you get in OS. In Chameleon neither works.) so I managed to use an old internal hard disk. Downloaded the support files in download section. Got the InstallESD.dmg. From "Part B", "3. Preparing the USB flash drive as a Mac bootable device volume" I did everything what is written. In 4. step I get the GeForce kexts and copied where verdant said to copy (I renamed GeForce.kext to GeForce.kext_ORIG and GeForceGA.plugin to GeForceGA.plugin_ORIG because my GTS 450 would boot up only with "-x" and then I do not have LAN nor sound. With this renaming I can boot up without flags but I don't have graphics acceleration YET). in verdant's support files I found "Extra Folder.pkg", installed it on the disk. Copied:

to System/Library/Extensions/ directory on disk. And did the terminal stuff. The kernel I used is from here. After install I had to boot back to install hard disk. Then copy kexts listed above and kernel on the installed system. Reboot and boot into installed system, then install chameleon.

I did not tried to install from usb. Maybe if I add to org.chameleon.Boot.plist wait time would work, but not tried YET. The DVD method don't works for me. I burned 20 different DVD's non works.

What is working now:

LAN networkSound (mic doesn't works)with "GraphicsEnabler=Yes" I can change resolution but no graphics accelerationUSB devices works if Legacy USB is disabled in BIOS (USBBusFix=Yes not works) or booting with "USBLegacyOff=Yes"sleep wake not works, to be honest I don't like when my machine goes to sleep. I bought my PC to be power on all the time.DVD-RW rom doesn't works. If I put a DVD in the drive, after 5 minutes says I put a blank DVD in the drive.

When everything will work, I will post the steps to your thread "AMD working Builds", how I get it stable on my PC. Before one year I had fully stable system with Mac OS X 10.6.8, but only 32-bit was work because then I had problems with nForceATA kext and 64-bit.

Posted 04 March 2013 - 06:21 PM

Aspartam

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It is hard to find people who have NVIDIA GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a chipset in this community. Maybe if you rename or move the thread "nForce 630a without AHCI" or something we would find more people with same problems and together would find out what will work for our chipsets

Posted 04 September 2013 - 03:38 AM

y2k4u

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When everything will work, I will post the steps to your thread "AMD working Builds", how I get it stable on my PC.

Were you able to get everything (or part of) to work? If so, could you please post the steps. I also have the nForce 630a and having great difficulty getting Lion and Mountain Lion to work due to "Waiting for root device" error.